Music lovers rejoice: The autumn is positively overrun with potentially great albums. From a collaboration between two of the strangest minds in music, to a possible goodbye from one of the greatest artists of all time and the reunion of a ‘90s favorite, the season is flush with albums likely to appear on dozens of best-of lists come year’s end. Prepare your iPods: Taylor Swift, and many, many others, are coming.

David Byrne and St. Vincent, Love This Giant

Release Date: Sept. 11

A melding of two of pop music’s strangest minds, Love This Giant, a collaboration between Talking Heads’ David Byrne and Annie Clark (a.k.a. St. Vincent) has raised eyebrows since it was announced over the summer. Combining Byrne’s strangled yelping with Clark’s sexy, hushed purr shouldn’t work, but tracks “Who” and “Weekend in the Dust” showcase the singers’ groovy, dark chemistry. It doesn’t hurt that the duo has eschewed rock instrumentation for electronic percussion and a brass ensemble. Add in the downright Lynchian, face-distorting album art, and all the pieces fall in place for Love This Giant to be one of the coolest, most surreal experiences of the fall.

Bob Dylan, Tempest

Release Date: Sept. 11

Because Tempest shares a title with Shakespeare’s final play, rumors abound that this will be Dylan’s final album. The master, for his part, remains coy. Swan song or not, Tempest promises to be an experience: “Early Roman Kings” is a gruff blues stomper, the title track is a 14-minute ode to the Titanic and Dylan has promised a tribute to old friend John Lennon. Thirty-five LPs in, Dylan has earned the right to do whatever the hell he wants. We recommend you just pour yourself a tumbler of whiskey and let the man do what he does best.

Robert Pollard, Jack Sells the Cow

Release Date: Sept. 18

Robert Pollard’s been on a bit of a roll lately. The always-prolific front man of ‘90s lo-fi masters Guided by Voices has already released three albums this year, one as a solo project and a stellar two with Voices, the first recorded with the “classic lineup” of masterpieces Bee Thousand and Alien Lanes in a decade and a half. Pollard’s solo work has often been hit or miss, but it’s never less than fascinating (simply figuring out what the hell he’s singing about is enough to keep any listener occupied through a few plays), and if he keeps the momentum he’s built up over the year, he could be headed for a serious late-career resurgence.

Ben Folds Five, The Sound of the Life of the Mind

Release Date: Sept. 18

The last time Ben Folds Five put out an album, The O.C. hadn’t broadcast its first episode. Think about that. Since the trio amicably disbanded in 2000, singer Ben Folds has released a string of critically acclaimed solo albums, worked with everyone from William Shatner to Sara Bareilles and doled out weirdly specific a capella critiques on The Sing-Off. Now he’s gotten the band back together for The Sound of the Life of the Mind. Single “Do It Anyway” is all Billy Joel piano-banging and sensitive-guy posturing, complete with just the faintest twinge of dad-rock nostalgia. Go ahead. Sing your heart out, Seth Cohen.

Dinosaur Jr., I Bet on Sky

Release Date: Sept. 18

Another reunited mainstay of the ‘90s alt-rock scene, Dinosaur Jr. has released two albums since co-founders J Mascis and Lou Barlow reconciled and put the band back together. Both were gloriously unstuck in time, as if the band had been cryogenically frozen mid-session sometime around 1997 and picked up right where it left off once thawed a decade later. “Watch the Corners,” the lead single off of upcoming release I Bet on Sky, is another Clinton-era throwback —  an angsty, palm-muted rocker that sounds like it should be played on cassette between airings of Yo! MTV Raps, suggesting that while Sky most likely won’t be a major leap forward for the band, it should rock pretty hard.

The Killers, Battle Born

Release Date: Sept. 18

Charging out of the Nevada desert like Bruce Springsteen behind the wheel of a Mustang, “Runaways” screamed out from behind a cloud of dust to become the rock track of the summer. The Killers are back. With Battle Born, the follow-up to 2008’s largely forgettable Day & Age, Brandon Flowers and company seek to reassert their stadium-rock dominance while continuing their loving tribute to ‘80s rock ‘n’ roll. Equal parts Elton John, Springsteen and Bono, “Runaways” is loud, bombastic and a little silly, The Killers at their anthemic, fist-pumping best. Unpretentious and fun, this is music for festivals and huge light shows.

Lupe Fiasco, Food & Liquor II: The Great American Rap Album Pt. 1

Release Date: Sept. 25

An album that’s been in the works since 2010, while Fiasco battled with his label over the successful but polarizing Lasers, the Chicago rapper’s latest looks to be a return to his backpack roots. Rejecting the sweeping, echoing production value and Skylar Grey cameos of Lasers, The Great American Rap Album is leaner and rougher, though Fiasco’s critical, politically astute lyrics remain intact (“If poverty is chocolate and privilege vanilla, then what’s the flavor of the Sunday preacher’s pedophilia?” he demands on single “Around My Way”). Fiasco is one of the sharpest and most gifted MCs around, but his output can be inconsistent. It remains to be seen whether The Great American Rap Album will live up to its lofty title.

The Mountain Goats, Transcendental Youth

Release Date: Oct. 2

Say what you will, The Mountain Goats may quite possibly be the hardest-working band in folk rock. Just a little more than a year since its last (very good) LP, All Eternals Deck, the prolific California three-piece is back with Transcendental Youth. Lead single “Cry For Judas” adds a bouncy horn section to the group’s trademark lo-fi strumming, while lead singer John Darnielle’s earnest wail and cutting, straightforward songwriting (“Some things you do just to see how bad they’ll make you feel”) remain pleasantly intact. Adding just enough new flourishes to a tried-and-true formula, Transcendental Youth should make nice autumn mood music for die-hards and casual listeners alike.

Why?, Mumps, etc.

Release Date: Oct. 9

WHY? manages to hit the sweet but slightly awkward spot on the Venn diagram where rap and sensitive indie pop overlap. Though front-man Yoni Wolf co-founded rap label Anticon, his deadpan, tongue-in-cheek flow has always been closer to The Streets than labelmate Aesop Rock, and the glockenspiel and acoustic guitar-heavy chorus of lead single “Sod in the Seed” could have come from a Cults B-side. Listening to Wolf playfully reconcile these two disparate worlds is what makes the music fascinating (“I’ll never shirk this first world curse,” he sarcastically laments on “Sod”), and Mumps, etc. promises to be a crash course on the sociology of race and class in modern rap music, as well as one of the wittiest and most fun albums of the year.

Benjamin Gibbard, Former Lives

Release Date: Oct. 16

Have you heard “Ichiro’s Theme” yet? If not, go online and find it right now. Gibbard’s ode to the former Seattle Mariners’ base-stealing prowess is one of the catchiest power-pop ditties in recent memory, the theme song to a Saturday morning anime too cool to ever really exist. The Death Cab for Cutie front man’s first solo album, Former Lives, drops this October. No track list or singles have been released as of press time, but fans of the emotional indie rock that made his band huge should find something on Lives to latch on to. As he has proven on standalone cuts like “Ichiro” and throughout his time with Death Cab, Gibbard is a reliably inventive tunesmith, and his forays into singer-songwriterdom should be worth following. At least until he finally releases his album of old-timey baseball songs. (A man can dream).

Titus Andronicus, Local Business

Release Date: Oct. 23

Mixing the despair and black humor of existentialism with the raucous energy of blackout-drunk punk rockers, Titus Andronicus announced itself as a major force to be reckoned with on its sophomore album, The Monitor, an epic rock opera that interwove the story of a New Jersey slacker’s breakup with Civil War-era history. The follow-up, Local Business, promises more of the same — minus the ambitious storytelling. Offering a familiar-to-fans blend of the high and lowbrow (the track listing, for example, includes both a Latin biblical quotation and the phrase “Hot Deuce”) and bleak subject matter, included but not limited to electrocutions, eating disorders and insanity. On the other hand, the press release promises the album will include “moments of pure positivity, brief respites from the usual doom and gloom.” Based on “(I Am The) Electric Man,” an uncharacteristically groovy earworm, those respites could be just as enjoyable as the usual madness Titus Andronicus does so well.

Taylor Swift, Red

Release Date: Oct. 23

Fresh off winning a smattering of Grammys for her unforgiving 2010 album Speak Now, Taylor Swift, country’s most ferocious ingenue, returns with Red, an album she claims will focus on her semi-toxic relationships — or, in other words, more of the same. The album’s first single, the typically caustic “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” is something of a musical (if not lyrical) evolution for Swift, marrying her familiar acoustic guitar to a poppy beat and electronic production flourishes. The kiss-off breakup anthem was reportedly written about Crocs co-founder George Boedecker Jr., so the list of things Swift hates now includes both Crocs and John Mayer. We can get behind that.

Andrew Bird, Hands of Glory

Release Date: Oct. 30

The reigning king of twee, Andrew Bird has already released one album this year, the fantastic Break It Yourself. His second effort, Hands of Glory, will feature “old-timey” covers of his own songs as well as covers of songs by traditional acts such as the Carter Family, essentially transforming Bird into the Soggy Bottom Boys from O Brother, Where Art Thou? He’s always had an affinity for the anachronistic, but whether his lush brand of sensitive folk will translate well into a Depression-era context remains to be seen. One thing’s for sure: It will probably have a lot of whistling.